Christmas 2008

I am finally getting around to posting about Christmas. We had a great Christmas. It was so exciting to watch the kids this year. They both were so much more into it than last year. Our Christmas started with going to church on Christmas Eve and then going to my sisters for her annual Christmas Eve dinner. We always go over there after church and have yummy Mexican food and then have a fire in the back yard. We had a birthday cake for Jesus and the kids sang Happy Birthday. My sister, DeAyn, made reindeer food for the kids so that we could sprinkle it on our lawn and Santa would know where to land. Ellie was so excited. My Papa passed away in April so this was our first Christmas without him. Usually they did not come to our Christmas Eve dinner because it was too far for them to drive on Christmas Eve, but this year my Granny decided to come up and spend the night with us. We had my mom, my stepdad, and my Granny here. We had a full house but it was nice. Santa brought the kids both bikes, Ellie a Barbie bike and Donovan a Spiderman bike. They also got lots of other fun things. My dad and stepmom got Ellie a Barbie laptop. I had no idea how much she wanted it until she opened it. She had just started unwrapping it and must have realized what it as because she starting gasping and then yelled "Its a Barbie computer, what I always wanted!" I wish we had gotten it on video. It is so fun to watch them experience Christmas. Mikey and I don't usually exchange gifts but this year he surprised me with a fancy new camera. I love it! I still am trying to figure out how to use all the features on it. I am taking an online class to try to figure out what all the features are.

We decided that we would not run around all over this year and we would enjoy our first Christmas in our house. We opened presents and made a nice Christmas breakfast and just enjoyed the morning without worrying about whose house we had to get to next. We went down to Casa Grande in the evening for dinner at my Granny's. I think this Christmas was probably one of the best Christmas' but yet also the saddest. It still seems so unbelievable to me that my Papa is no longer with us.

The day after Christmas we had Mikey's family and our friends Tim and Jenny and their kids over. It was a lot of fun. We used to hang out a lot when we all lived closer and did not have all the kids but over the years we don't see eachother as much as we used to. We ate lunch, played Catch phrase, played some Wii, and the guys took all the kids to the park while us girls stayed. It was a very busy few days but it was nice to spend a few days with family and friends.